Wearable salutes to six iconic characters from the shonen ninja saga.
There are a lot of anime/manga franchises that feature ninja, but part of what makes Naruto stand out from the rest is its eclectic costume design. Sure, you’ve got the headbands, armor plating, and other kinds of historical garb found in most ninja series, but there’s also an undercurrent of modern street fashion, especially in the tracksuit-like outfit that Naruto himself wears.
The setting is one in which neither ninja nor sneakers would be a shock to encounter, which brings us to Naruto’s first-ever collaboration with Converse.
The lineup consists of a total of six different designs, four of which use Converse’s All Star Ox canvas low-tops as their base, and the remaining two being Naruto-themed All Star Hi high-tops.
Each shoe is also a salute to a specific character, with the low-tops drawing their inspiration from Naruto, Sasuka, Sakura, and Kakashi for their color schemes and embroidered extras at the heel.
Each also has a metallic plate reminiscent of the one on ninja headbands. They all bear the emblem of Naruto’s home village of Konoha, but, as you might expect, Sasuke’s is looking a little less than pristine.
The Natuto logo is printed on the sole, and the shoes come in a snazzy special box too.
Moving on to the high-tops, we also come to some high-ranking ninja, starting with none other than Naruto’s dad, Minato.
In keeping with his fire-themed position as Fourth Hokage, flames can be seen flaring up all around the shoes.
The high-tops don’t have any metal plates, but Minato’s do have the kanji for “Fourth Hokage” on the back…
…and the traditional Converse All-Star logo gets an additional element: the Konoha village emblem.
And last, the Itachi high-tops borrow the vermillion cloud motif of his Akatsuki coat, bear the kanji for “vermillion” on the back, and merge the Converse star with the pattern of Itachi’s Mangekyo Sharingan dojutsu.
The low-tops are priced at 12,100 yen (US$78) and the high-tops 14,300 yen. They’re all available now through the Converse online store (here and here), and seem like just the sort of thing to wear if you’re heading to Japan’s Naruto theme park area to pick up your real-life Flying Thunder God Kunai.
Source: PR Times via Nijimen
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: Converse, PR Times, Converse (2)
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